


Unstable

by JuniRiceBall



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Another story, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-07 13:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12842523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuniRiceBall/pseuds/JuniRiceBall
Summary: MC visits an unmarked grave while 707 watches. Another Story spoilers.





	1. Chapter 1

It was cold on that day, but inside V’s house, it was pleasantly warm. The Beatles’ _Here Comes The Sun_ played unironically in the background. Along with the already beautiful photographs displayed in neat frames on the walls, bright yellow flowers flown in from Holland were arranged neatly in the living room.

            It was them again, the RFA. Despite V’s weak protests not to bother, Jumin insisted on having a party after his eye surgery. He arranged everything to be bright and colourful, from the decorations, the food, and the Christmas sweaters (Yoosung’s idea, which was happily or reluctantly followed by the other members, depending on who they were). The smell of warm chocolate, Turkey, and stew filled everyone’s nostrils. As the doors closed, everyone cheered.

            “To V! To V’s Vision!”

            He laughed. He still had his sunglasses on. “Thanks everyone, but Dr. Lee told me that it might take a month or so after the corneal transplants before my vision is stabilized.” He looked around and gave a warm smile. “I see enough, though. All the lovely colours, all your smiles. It’s very nice.”

            “I’m relieved to hear that,” said Jaehee. “Even if you don’t see us in detail yet, we will take a lot of photos so you would be able to appreciate these later.”

            “We’ll post everything in the messenger app, too, so you can go back to it anytime you like,” piped up Yoosung. He smiled at V, one of the rare genuine smiles he’s ever given him.

            “Anyways! V doesn’t need his vision to eat, right?” Seven was already chomping on a turkey leg and had another in his hand as he said this. “Let’s eat already! I’m starving~”

            “Oi, oi, oi. What do you think you’re doing! Aren’t we supposed to say grace first and all that! And I told you earlier that I got dibs on the turkey leg!” Zen protested as he attempted to steal one from Seven, who swiftly dodged his attacks.

            “You snooze you lose, dude. Dex -1 for Zen. That’s what you get for drinking beer on an empty stomach!”

            “Wait~~ I wanted turkey legs too, Seven~~” whined Yoosung, and the three of them chased each other around the dining room and kitchen, while Jaehee sighed and decided to set up the rest of the food by herself.

            “… idiots,” mumbled Jumin from V’s side. He looked at him and gave a small smile. “I’m happy to see you so well, my friend. Dr. Lee’s the correct choice for your eyes. But how’s the rest of you? How have you been doing in physical therapy?”

            V adjusted his position in his wheelchair to look to the person pushing it. “I can stand and walk a bit by myself now, but I get tired easily… M.C. has been a great help to me, though. I wouldn’t have had the energy to keep coming back to rehab medicine if it weren’t for her.”

            “Is that so?”

            M.C. knew that V wouldn’t see her smile yet, and so she smiled at Jumin, creasing her eyes. “It’s all V’s efforts, though. He looked very strong the last time I went with him to physical therapy. I just know he’ll be back on his feet in no time! And now that his vision might stabilize, I’m excited about his next art projects!”

            “Yes, I too am excited about the photographs that V will produce after he recovers.” Jumin said, handing a glass of wine to both of them. “Before you say anything, I asked your surgeon about alcohol intake, and he says it’s okay.”

            V laughed. “Actually, Jumin, I was about to say that I won’t do photography as much once I can see again…”

            Jumin stopped.

            “Don’t give me that look.” V smiled sweetly at M.C. “I talked to M.C. about this, too. I thought it was about time I pursued my first love, which is painting.”

            “Oh. This is amazing news.” It was in Jumin’s usual deadpan voice, although to the trained listener, a lilt of excitement was noticeable in his statement. “You are a talented artist, V. As a businessman and your friend, I look forward to having collaborations and investments with you.”

            They lifted their glasses with a mild _clink_ , and the three of them took a small sip of their wine. It was a good vintage, and M.C.’s eyes widened a bit at how nice it tasted.

            Their nice, quiet moment shattered, along with what sounded like the tower of glassware in the kitchen, followed by Yoosung’s screams, Zen’s curses, and Seven’s guffaws. This was followed by Jaehee berating everyone else and the unmistakable sound of the three boys being made to clean up after their messes.

            “I suppose we better move there before they break all the dishes and leave us nothing to eat with,” said Jumin.

            “I hope none of the glassware is mine,” said V in a bright (albeit incompatible) voice. M.C. couldn’t help but giggle as she pushed the wheelchair towards the bright dining room, where the familiar chaos of the RFA welcomed them.

  * \- -



It was later that evening. Most of the members of the R.F.A., except V and M.C., had a decent amount of alcohol intake. They went out to the yard, and Zen and Yoosung lit up fireworks for everyone to enjoy. In the background, it sounded as if Jumin was giving Zen a hard time about something again, and everyone was joining in on the fun.

“This is nice, M.C. I’m very happy that we’re all together again… even though Rika isn’t here with us…”

A bit of silence. M.C. probably bit her lip in thought at this point, pondering upon the kindest way to phrase her words. “Even though it hurts me too, thinking about how her illness has taken over her… I have hope for her too, V. I think in the future, it’s possible for us to see these fireworks together with her.”

V thought about his next line deeply too. “You think so, M.C.?” Laughter and explosions continued on in the background, in a reality distant from the two of them. “I’m a bad person, M.C… I know about her, I know about her illness, but right now, I honestly don’t want her to enjoy this… what little beauty I am seeing as I stare at you against the sparkling sky…”

“V…”

“I know, I know. It’s just that… sometimes, it scares me how close she was to taking you… if you weren’t as strong as you were, M.C., you would still be with them. And I would probably have just died…”

A short sigh escaped M.C.’s lips. “You guys went through so much,” was all she said.

V must have looked to the sky at that point. “I know. I’m getting better thanks to your efforts, M.C. But I still feel quite broken…”

“You’re not broken, V…”

“I am, M.C.” He probably looked at her with his half-blind gaze, probably had a painful smile at his face. The pain reverberated in his voice. “And I think… I think I depend on you too much, M.C. You are a wonderful person, and dependable. And all I want is to be whole before I even think…”

The two of them stared at each other. V took another deep breath, as if exhausted, before saying, “Before I could even think of loving you.”

“… oh.” M.C.’s voice came up weakly after that statement.

“Sometimes, I think I… I think I fall for you on some days, M.C… and then I get afraid, so afraid… that I’m too ill, that you’ll get sick of me, or that you’re passing up better things, better people—“

“V… please don’t…” Her eyes must have been struggling to keep dry here. After a while, she shook off the bad vibes, and regained her composure. “I know, V… I know that it’s not an easy time in your life right now… and I’ll be here, helping you while you need me. I’ll give you as much time as you need. I won’t be angry or insulted. Because I cherish you, and I’d like you to find yourself again…”

From the corner of his eye, Seven watched this interaction unfold between them. He saw them embracing each other, a glisten of a tear threatening to reveal itself under V’s sunglasses.

So it was no surprise for him later that he announced that he was moving to Alaska in the next couple of months, as part of his recovery process. He didn’t know when he would come back—all he said was that he will come back once he’s whole again. Everyone else, even Jumin, was shocked, and expressed their sadness and well-wishes for him. Seven nodded with everyone else. He gave V a tight embrace, and afterwards gave M.C. an even tighter one. He held her hands in his very briefly, and notes the weight of her smart phone in her hands, which was slightly heavier with the device that Seven implanted earlier to hear her conversation with V.

 _He hasn’t talked about him with her, either…_ he thought solemnly as he drove home in his sportscar. He didn’t know whether to feel relief or restlessness. The tightness in his chest remained.

  * \- -



It was his instincts that told him to follow her today, of all days.

It was a cold winter’s day, and M.C. went out of her apartment with a resolute look in her face. She didn’t wear her usual pastel colours today, but instead opted to wear a black and grey outfit, paired with a shockingly magenta scarf. She barely looked to her left and right as she went on her way.

V has left, and there was no reason for her to accompany him to physical therapy anymore. He also knew that M.C. did not have work on that day either. Making sure to keep his distance and to keep his shocking red hair out of sight, he followed her three blocks down.

She stopped and entered a flower shop. He felt bad for doing this to her, but years of working in the agency told him to never ignore his guts. And his guts told him that he needed to do this.

Seven took his smart phone and activated the microphone he attached to her phone. Through his earbuds, he listened to her pretty voice as she spoke with the owner.

“Good morning! I ordered something a week ago. Is it here yet? Here’s my claim slip.”

“Hmm. Oh~ yes, the bouquet of blue roses. Quite an unusual order, so I remember it. Yes, I’ll have it prepared for you, if you’ll give me a second.”

“Yes, thank you so much!”

Seven narrowed his eyes in curiosity.

“You must be giving these to someone special, aren’t you?”

“Yes, you caught me.” She laughed. From his vantage point from some ways away, through the shop window, Seven saw her face light up pleasantly, and he felt his heart throb a little bit. “It’s someone I haven’t seen for some time now.”

“You are a sweet girl, aren’t you?” The shopkeeper, an elderly woman, smiled back at her. “But blue roses are unusual… you know the meaning of these, don’t you? It symbolizes the impossible—“

“… or the unattainable.” M.C.’s eyes creased as she smiled, but there was an unmistakable flash of sorrow which only lasted a millisecond. “It’s fine, though… it’s just that it’s a beautiful colour…”

“… all right. Well, they are beautiful, even if I have to say it myself.” The flower shop owner put the last ribbon on the bouquet, placed it in a paper bag, and handed it to her. “Here you are~ Keep smiling, young lady, and I hope these flowers help you and the person who will receive them somehow…”

“I know they will. Thank you!”

Seven hid himself from plain sight, and watched M.C. walk away. Again, he trailed behind her, his curiosity growing to almost harmful levels. Were they for V? But V lived in the opposite direction… and, for that matter, none of the members of the R.F.A. were to be found in the direction that M.C. was going.

Were they for someone else? Seven had some ideas about M.C.’s acquaintances outside of the R.F.A., but no-one he knew would merit a bouquet of beautiful blue roses from her…

It was a long walk, but M.C. appeared to have a lot to think about. The smile on her face that she showed in the flower shop faded, and a blank, almost sad look replaced it. By the time she (and Seven) reached her destination, she did not feel the need to hide the sorrow on her face any longer.

 _… a cemetery?_ Thought Seven. In his mind, he tracked back on all the information he had of M.C., and to his knowledge, apart from a grandfather who was cremated a decade ago, no-one of her acquaintances had died.

The skies were overcast, and a chill wind blew, letting her magenta scarf float against the stark background. In what seemed to be a secret place there, where beautiful flowers grew in abundant bushes, was an unmarked grave. M.C. stopped here, laid the blue roses over there, and sighed.

To his surprise, Seven suddenly heard her voice, clear as day, through his earbud. “Ray… it’s been 6 months…”

 _Ray?_ The hacker?! Seven almost let a loud sound escape through his mouth, but he caught himself on time.

“I still can’t believe you’ve done this to yourself… I thought… I thought that we were doing the right thing, Ray… I thought that if I went with him, we could make plans to save you from that crazy place too… and I would have kept my promise to you, to never leave you alone, to be with you forever… but…”

Ragged sobs, unlike Seven’s ever heard of before, emerged through his earbud. From a distance, he watched M.C. bow her head and cover her mouth. Her small shoulders shook violently as she cried.

“I can’t believe you would do this, Ray… You told me you loved me, so why…? When I, too… I…”

 _Loved her? That crazy hacker? And M.C, too…_ Seven felt weak at the knees suddenly. He was barely processing what he was hearing, and yet his heart felt as if it were being stabbed violently multiple times.

_What happened to them?_

“I… I thought I loved V, and I know you hated hearing his name… I was so, so, so cruel to you… I know now that I’m too broken to even think of moving on… And he left us, left all of us again…”

Seven regretted placing the microphone on her phone, regretted ever following her. What he was doing was wrong, very wrong. His heart fell to pieces every time her shoulders shook when she cried. He took off the earbud from his ear and decided to leave her be.

From a distance, he took one last look at her—M.C., the woman that Seven wanted to protect, no matter what—and saw a stranger in black behind her, about to put a blindfold over her face.

At first, his secret agent instincts kicked in. He reached for a gun inside his coat, and aimed at the stranger’s head.

But he froze and almost stopped breathing when he saw his own face from a distance.

“S… Saeran…”

His hair was ghost-white, and his face was pale from the cold. Half of his face was covered by a bandage, and scar tissue (from burns, probably) peeked from beneath. However, there was no doubt in Seven’s mind that it was Saeran. His gloved hands silently and gently placed a blindfold over M.C.’s eyes. She gasped in surprise at first, and then froze in shock.

“Hello again, my love.” He didn’t hear it, but Seven read it from his twin’s mouth. Flustered, he hid near the bushes again and placed an earbud in his ear, watching the shocking scene before his eyes.

“… Ray… you’re…” Flustered, M.C. tried to take the blindfold off of her eyes, but Saeran held her hands from behind her and gave her an embrace.

“How many times have I imagined doing this to you, my love… I missed you… it hurt every day more than my wounds, knowing that I’ve left you alone with them… but now you’re here… Oh, I’ve missed you…”

“You’re alive, Ray? Please, let me see you with my own eyes—“

“Please don’t…” Saeran held her hands again, and as she turned around to attempt to face him, he held her so that her face was against his chest. “I’ve only come here so that you won’t cry anymore, my love… It hurts me even more to see you in pain, because of me…”

“Ray,” said M.C. She was barely able to hide her tears, but now a smile was fighting for the surface. “Ray, you’re really here… Please, let me take care of you… I promised I won’t leave you alone, and now I can keep my promise to you…”

“It’s all right, M.C… I’m preparing something for us, something beautiful… Something that I don’t want to ruin by telling you right now. You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that you still remember your promise to me.”

“Ray, don’t…”

“It’s the only way we can be together, my love,” said Saeran.

“No, it’s not… if I take you home with me right now, right here, in the city…”

Saeran smiled. “He’s still with you. I can’t just come back.”

“He…? V? He isn’t anymore, Ray. If that’s what you’re worried about… Please, we can work something out…” The desperation in M.C.’s voice grew and grew. The anxiety made her mouth tremble and quiver.

“Not him…” And in that moment, Saeran glanced at Saeyoung, his eyes falling naturally to his eyes. He knew all along that he had been there. He looked back at the blindfolded M.C., whose tears were flowing freely behind the blindfold, and gave her cheek a kiss.

Then, without turning back, without another word, he left. By the time M.C. was able to pull the blindfold off her eyes, all she saw was his silhouette, and when she tried to chase him, he disappeared. She collapsed once more in a hopeless heap on the cold hard ground and cried. After this, she mustered up all her strength, dried up her eyes, opened her messenger and pretended to be fine, and went home.

            Seven, too, tried to chase him. He chased him, attempted to search for any trace of him that he left. Later on, he would review all the footage he could get from satellites or nearby CCTVs. And out of all of these, none would give him any information on where he had gone.

  * \- -



Ray smelled the blue rose in his hand, and remembered the taste of her tears.

 

How he missed her. But he will be with her very soon.

 


	2. Unhinged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two weeks after...

When MC opened the door to her apartment, she had a mildly surprised look on her face. “Is… anything wrong?” she asked, unease evident in her voice.

It had been a while since Seven saw her in person by himself outside the excuse of an RFA event, and her worry was understandable. The last time they saw each other like this was when they had to detoxify V. The stress and despair that they both felt during that mess was not something that was easily forgotten, and somehow seeing her like this sent a heavy feeling on his insides.

Just to make her feel more secure, he put on a cheesy grin, something that he assumed she was more accustomed to. “Nothing major, MC. Mind if I come in?”

“Of course not,” she said, although the unease in her stance did not go away. She stepped aside and let him in, delicately tucking her hair behind her ear as she did so. 

She was obviously unprepared for guests; she was clad only in a loose white shirt and a pair of old denim shorts, which made her look small and made it obvious to Seven that she had lost some weight since V left. Nevertheless, her unit was tidy, in sharp contrast to his bunker. It had been a while since he sat on a clean couch. She disappeared in the kitchen for a moment and came out with a bottle of PhD Pepper and a glass of ice.

She set these before him and stared straight in his eyes. “Are you going to explain to me why you were following me a couple of weeks ago?”

Seven knew better than to lie. The fake grin on his face slowly fell, and was replaced by a visible struggle to hide a pained grimace. “So you’ve noticed. I thought I was being an effective spy.”

“You were. I didn’t know you were there up until…” She paused and stared at the table, as if to regain her courage, “up until the cemetery.”

Seven exhaled slowly and audibly. Saeran had appeared before her like a ghost, with very disturbing promises that she was willingly swallowing hook, line, and sinker. Back then, he had chased after his twin and inexplicably failed. He had trudged back to the spot hidden in the gardens of the graveyard, just in time to see MC give him one long, cold look before leaving him there all alone.

“I am really sorry, MC. It was something that I needed to do.”

“Oh?” Coolly, she poured the soda in the glass, letting it foam and pop and sizzle before looking into Seven’s eyes again. “Intruding on my privacy and spying on me and getting in the way of my personal business was something that you needed to do? Which shady rich businessman paid for you to do this? Is it Jumin?”

It was the first time that he heard her voice so devoid of its usual warmth and innocence, and there was only cold anger biting back at him. He tried not to let it unnerve him. “No-one paid me, MC. No-one wants to spy on you except me.”

MC inhaled, her amber eyes glowing, her face struggling to betray any emotion. “After all that has happened, with V, with Mint Eye…” She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes. “I… I trust you with my life, Seven. But I don’t know what’s going on anymore, and honestly my heart and my mind are both too tired to figure things out for myself. So please…”

Her voice cracked at the end of her spiel. Typical MC—she was tricked from start to finish, and yet she struggled to remain kind to everyone, even a hacker creep who was caught spying on her.

No matter—Seven steeled himself from the moment he stepped through the door to tell the truth. “That guy you called Ray. The hacker. I need to find him.”

She tilted her head slightly to the side. “Are you going to have him arrested? If so, I won’t help you.”

Seven shook his head. “I’ll never bring him to the authorities, MC. I promise you that.”

“So what do you want with him?”

After a brief moment of silence, of Seven steeling himself again, he answered, “I want the same thing as you. I want… I want to save him. I want to save Saeran.”

Her eyes widened questioningly, and the red-haired hacker answered once more, “I want to bring him back, MC. I want to bring my only brother home.”

“… brother…” She stared at him blankly at first, letting the word hang in the air. “Brother,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“It makes sense. Finally it makes sense. I should have known,” she muttered, more to herself than to Seven. “He spoke about you often. He said that he hated you the most. It felt like you hurt him very deeply.”

“I… I did.” Guilt—that old, familiar demon—manifested itself within Seven’s chest cavity again.

He had left Saeran for dead—no, he had left him to a fate worse than death.

After some moments taking it all in, MC asked, “What happened? Why _weren’t_ you with him, when he was being manipulated by her? Why did you leave him all alone…?”

“I don’t know… I honestly don’t know,” Seven moaned. Out of reflex, he put his head into his hands and avoided her eyes. “I thought I left Saeran in a place where I thought he would be safe and happy, while I went in a different direction to keep it that way for him… but he wasn’t, and I didn’t know, I didn’t know…”

He felt his defences breaking into small, sharp pieces as he let the truth spill out of his mouth. He kept repeating “I didn’t know, I didn’t know _fuck_ I didn’t know,” until something hot and warm seeped out from the corners of his eyes and made his vision blurry. He removed his glasses to rub them off his cheeks and scrunched up his eyes in an attempt to squeeze them out. He tried not to let a sob escape from his mouth, and failed as he said, “I… I m-made the worst mistake of my life, and I d-didn’t even know.”

Every damn day that passed in that god-forsaken agency, every RFA event that he participated in, every prayer that he mumbled each night before he slept, every bag of honey butter chips and bottle of PhD Pepper that he mindlessly ingested to keep him going—he endured all of these with a smile, all for Saeran. Even as he saw the mess that V and Rika made between themselves, he tried to ignore the small voice nagging at the back of his head that something was wrong. And now…

He didn’t know for how long he was lost in his own thoughts, or for how long he cried in front of MC. He looked up, only mildly embarrassed about how his eyes and cheeks were probably as red as his hair and how the snot dripped from his nose like leaky faucets. “Shit… I’m sorry about this, MC,” he said weakly. When he was about to wipe his face with the sleeve of his jacket, MC stopped him with a pure white sheet of facial tissue.

“No need to be sorry,” MC said quietly, her gaze fixed on the glass surface of the coffee table in between them. “You… you thought Ray was in a safe place?”

Seven nodded and sighed, his breath still shaky. “It’s a long story… I… I was hoping V told you something about it. That’s the main reason why I bugged your phone.”

“What would V know?”

 “He promised me, when I was younger, that he and Rika would take care of Saeran. I wasn’t allowed to see him, but he was _well,_ they told me. They told me he was safe and happy.”

“But he wasn’t.”

Seven bowed his head down so that his forehead touched the edge of the table. “He… he wasn’t. And… it’s all my fault…”

Despair flooded his senses, and he gladly wallowed in it. The rush of blood in his ears drowned out all  the other noises in the room, so that he heard nothing and saw nothing. After a while, he felt the cool fingertips of MC gently fall on the top of his head.

“Seven… it’ll be okay.” The deafening rush disappeared, and there was only MC’s voice.

MC, the woman that he loved (more than any other woman, he thought painfully), lifted his face in one hand. Her other hand cradled her own head, and her amber eyes stared into his own. Through his bleary vision, her gaze was curiously dark. “You really love Ray—no, Saeran—don’t you, Seven?”

“More than anything,” he replied.

She smiled at him. “That’s all we need. We’ll find a way to save him, won’t we?”

Again, that curious darkness, probably a trick of the light, graced her features. Something in him throbbed warningly. Despite this, Seven nodded in agreement. “We will.”

Wordlessly, MC pushed the glass of soda, now sweaty with water droplets dampening the surface of the table, a little closer to Seven.

He took the glass in one hand and looked at her. She had a smile on her face as she stared at him, expectantly…

Again, something inside his chest kicked—something wasn’t right. But his throat was parched, and it was _MC,_ and this is her home, and she’s so innocent, and he loved her, and she wouldn’t do anything like…

Like…

“Stop!”

Before the glass made it to his lips, her hand shot out and grasped his hand. The glass shook, and some of the soda spilled on the table and the floor.

MC had her head bowed down. Her whole body shook, and as tears flowed down her cheeks, she bit down on her lip so hard that it bled. “Don’t…” she said, her anguish and despair and shame making her voice shudder.

“MC…”

“What am I doing…?” she said, a misplaced smile on her face. “What the hell am I doing? Seven… I… I don’t know what to do… he hates you so much, and I just want him here, and I’m just so _very_ lost and desperate, but you are too, aren’t you, and—”  

MC, the woman he loved very much and the woman who probably tried to kill him just now, began crumpling to the floor. As she did, he stood up and went to her side and caught her in his arms and let her cry there, as hard as she did on the day that they both saw his brother come back from the dead.

“S-Seven… I’m so, so, sorry… I didn’t know what I was doing…”

“Ssh.” He embraced her and rubbed her back. _You can hate me if you want. If it will bring Saeran back, you can do anything you want._

Anything?

He felt it then—that unmistakable feeling of somebody watching them, paired with the feeling of being hated to the very marrow of his bones. Sharply, he turned to the direction of the kitchen, half-expecting a pair of green eyes looking at them both, but there was only empty space, and the subtle flutter of the small curtain hanging over the open window.

“MC… did you leave your window open?”

Wide-eyed and sniffling, MC shook her head.

He let her go quietly and slowly went into the kitchen. It was small comfort knowing that he had a gun somewhere in his body, and that he knew the layout of MC’s apartment (having studied it briefly before he decided to come visit her), and that if need be, he could scoop her up and escape the apartment in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

They were at the 7th floor of the apartment complex, and the open window showed a long drop from the ledge and the soft glow of the lights over Seoul. Looking over the scene quickly and not finding any answers, he shut the window and turned around.

“Why’d you close it? If you had jumped, it would have solved a lot of things.”

White hair. Pale skin. Magenta suit. Angry scar at one side of the face. Crazed, green eyes that looked different from before. He had one hand around the shocked MC’s mouth and a gun in the other. The sharp click of the safety being switched off resonated within the small apartment.

“Ray, was it?” said Seven, struggling to keep calm.

He clicked his tongue. “That guy isn’t here right now, Saeyoung—or Seven, or whatever shit number you call yourself now. You went all _Saeran this_ and _Saeran that_ for so long that he threw a tantrum and let me in charge again.”

“Saeran… don’t do this,” he pleaded. He raised both hands in the air and approached them slowly. “Hurt me or kill me if you want. Just… don’t do that to MC. Please.”

The white-haired man cackled as MC suddenly struggled out of his grip. “Believe me, I really, _really_ want to shoot you right now. You know, she wanted to kill you moments ago—I saw her put the rat poison in your soda with my very own eyes—but crying like a bitch and appealing to her soft side saved your life.” He shifted their position briefly to look into MC’s face. “Why’d you change your mind, huh? If you had let this cockroach die, you would have saved the both of us a lot of time, and you would be with your precious little _Ray_ in your little paradise by now.”

Her hands clawed desperately at the thickly gloved hand covering her mouth and she tried to kick and thrash around, but Saeran was strong, and every time she struggled, the arm around her neck tightened.

“Saeran, let her go!” yelled Seven, to which Saeran only laughed.

Somehow, MC was able to move the hand away from her mouth for long enough to yell, “Ray! Come back!”

Hearing her plea, the white-haired man froze. The crazed look in his eyes faded, and in utter confusion, he stared back at MC, and then at Seven, and then at himself.

This moment only lasted for a few seconds before the crazed look was back, and Saeran took control again and clamped MC’s mouth shut. But these few seconds were just enough for Seven to spring from his place in the kitchen, fly in the air, and crash-land into the two of them.

In the struggle, MC was able to roll out of the way, and Seven desperately wrestled the gun out of Saeran’s grip. When the younger twin hit the side of his head, he struck back, and the shock and anger pulsed out of them both, and they were beating each other senseless.

“Ray! Saeyoung! Stop!”

Seven’s fist landed onto the floor next to his twin’s head. The gaze that looked up at him was angry and resentful, but it had none of the mania that was there moments before.

“Kill me,” said Ray in a challenging tone. “Finish what you started.”

“I’ll never do that. Not to my only brother.”

A wheezy, ironic laugh escaped from Ray’s cut lips. “I’m not your brother. Not anymore.”

“Ray…” MC fell on her knees next to them, appearing weaker than Seven thought possible.

He rolled to the side and struggled to stand up, and from the corner of his eye, saw her gently cradling his brother’s head onto her lap. “I’m dizzy,” Ray had mumbled to her, and he closed his eyes and didn’t move and let a strangely comfortable smile fall upon his lips as MC stroked his forehead and whispered something back to him. He had whispered something back to her then before falling asleep.

He tried not to wonder why they fit so well in that twisted way of theirs. He focused instead on giving Jumin a call—he would need a lot of help from someone he trusted.

_______

 

Later on, a clandestine team of medical experts went in and took the unconscious Saeran into a health facility. Jumin was there, and after listening to Seven’s promises for a fuller explanation later, the businessman merely nodded and assured him that the best doctors in Korea will be taking care of his brother then.

During this time, MC remained silent, her eyes glowing anxiously.

Ray had made her promise. They would live in paradise together, if only she would help him escape.

There were only so many ways to do that now. She looked up at Seven, who cast a worried glance at her.

Without any hesitation in her heart, she smiled and enclosed her hand upon his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to continue this initially because I didn't know how . But Cheritz' wonderful announcement re: the Ray route got me so excited that I forced myself to write a second chapter! I can't wait to play it! Argh!  
> Also, writing MC like this was kind of unusual. She doesn't have a character so it was hard to be in character lol but she has a lot of potential to be crazy and borderline too, based on the possible responses she has in any given route. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable reading her like this.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I refuse to accept what happened to Ray. *puffs cheeks*


End file.
